Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

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Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Motronic posted:

Not sure why you think this isn't a valid exit strategy and a good way to make money for both the founders and investors. Plenty of larger companies simply suck at innovating and prefer/need to acquire technology or teams (acqui-hire). This happens all the time and everyone makes money when it is done successfully.

Yeah wow who are we to criticize this thing that makes some people money and fucks over all the little people who put in the actual work to make it happen???

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 18:11

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 00:05

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

FCKGW posted:

I hate Costco gas because everyone around here min/maxes their gas purchase to the point where they’re time is valueless as long as they find the absolute lowest price and as a consequence the Costco gas lines are always a minimum 20 minute wait no matter what time you go.

I can't even remember the last time I got Costco gas. The lines and associated traffic assholery are just too much for me to want to deal with.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2018 22:58

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

super nailgun posted:

Yeah. The only good outcome from that is that it got the people who want to deregulate in Oregon to shut the gently caress up since they are so plainly wrong. State run liquor distro is great for the state and drinkers both. Lots of cash in state coffers, lower prices, and there's actually interesting booze on the shelves and we have a vibrant craft distillery scene thanks to preferential stocking and display of smaller shops' stuff.

As much as I loved the state liquor stores, I'm afraid most of the people who voted for deregulation don't care about any of that poo poo because now they can buy giant bottles of booze at Costco.

And somehow the invisible hand of the market didn't magically make booze any cheaper with all the healthy competition that was brought in. :thunk:

# ¿ Mar 19, 2018 18:05

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

Essentially every single piece about blaming millennials comes down to the fact that millennials don't have any drat money, including this one. "No wage, only spend!" Forever and ever and ever.

According to boomers we're not making less money, we're just spending it all on avocado toast. Maybe they should have passed better financial responsibility onto their kids if they didn't want all these businesses to die. :rolleyes:

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 16:53

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

It's pretty loving bad. I work with low income communities and even they get into it, talking about who's "really" deserving of assistance and who's not. I just try not to engage as much as possible because I just want to help as many people as I can but it's frustrating and extremely sad to listen to people in poverty crab bucketing in real time.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 17:39

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but: you know those posters on the sliding glass door at the grocery store, warning you not to misuse your SNAP because you'll get sent to prison forever? Welfare fraud probably costs the government less than those posters; stuff like that is about making the poor hate each other and themselves.

Yeah, we're a great people, always happy to be miserable as long as there's someone we can poo poo on.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 17:50

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

saintonan posted:

The founder of TRU died today.

Jesus that leveraged buyout was brutally thorough.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 20:51

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Ya'll can smarm all you want about this poo poo but it's actually really loving gross that we essentially allow giant corporations to target children and instill brand loyalty as soon as they leave the crib, and TRU was a particularly poo poo example of that sort of thing.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2018 23:04

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Sugar has ~~probably~~ definitely killed more people than cigarettes in the last fifty years via heart disease. But no, we're all just a bunch of loving snobs over here.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 18:23

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

let me help you with this sinister engineering: make things people want to buy e.g. salty and sweet.

so evil.

*looks at rates of obesity and deaths related to heart disease skyrocketing*

Uh yeah, pretty evil.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 19:41

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Oh my God I responded to sentient versions of "one day the news says butter's bad, the next day they say use butter! Which is it???"

Good riddance.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 20:57

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

so which is it? Obviously not bad since it isn't sugar

Sugar wasn't an important part of anyone's diet until last century, since you seem hung up on the historicity of foods. You seem really unhinged about all this, do you work for a company that puts soda vending machines in schools or something?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 21:28

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

stop deflecting m8 and lol that sugar wasn't important over 100 years ago

By all means, give me a "pucker gun" example of sugar consumption from 100 years ago to own me. As though some historical example of a person consuming sugar means that somehow sugar consumption didn't explode exponentially in the 20th century.

Maybe you could go on a month long diet of soda and candy bars to own me further.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 21:53

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

ReidRansom posted:

Bro, the slave trade was all built around sugar. By the 1700s it was very important poo poo.

Okay but was anyone actually consuming sugar at anything near 20th century levels?

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

Honey: most of the world. Hth

Ah yes, people were consuming more than 100 lbs of honey per person per year at any point in recorded history, certainly.

fishmech posted:

This is completely false, but you have fun with your alternative reality, friend!

In the same sense that the volume of fat and the volume of protein and the volume of everything else people eat exploded too, sure. Additionally you have serious changes in how much of the population in developed countries switched over from hard industrial and agricultural labor for 10+ hour days into modes of employment with a whole lot less physical effort involved - that article from earlier on Kenya newly needing to deal with obesity as people are moving into cities and taking up more sedentary jobs touches on it quite explicitly.

Again, sugar use lately specifically spiked because there was a desire to cut down on fat, as fat was the boogeyman of the 70s-90s.

I invite you to consider how in America, caloric sweetener use per capita peaked in 1999 and has been declining ever since:

Maybe you should post a graph going back a little farther, fishmech. It's a good thing sweetener use is declining but it's declining from levels that were already outrageous and the declining figure is still too drat high.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 23:54

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

fishmech posted:

No, those levels weren't "already outrageous", you're just projecting your personal tastes as valid - they aren't. That's half a century of data on caloric sweetener usage, which is also as far back as reliable data from the USDA goes.

Your whole central thesis is "durr sugar is to blame". Well surely if sugar is what's to blame, then obesity rates should at least fall a little from when the peak sugar usage was right? I mean it's been many years since then so even if it's a thing that needs a lot of time lag to take effect we should see it.

But what we see is that obesity rates continue to increase from 1999:

Sugar consumption in 2013-2014 is 85% of the consumption in 1999-2000, yet the obesity rate in children is 123% of 1999-2000 and the obesity rate in adults is also 123% of 1999-2000.

Additionally the last pair of years with sugar consumption comparable to 2013-2014 happened, 1987-1988, the obesity rate is hard to tell as the reliable data segment is only available from a survey done over 1988-1994 inclusive. But at that data point, we see ~20% of adults obese and ~7% of children. Those are 54% and 41% of the rate in 2013-2014 with similar sugar intake. This is particularly important to observe with children, as while adults have had a very long time to gain weight, children haven't, and the children cohort for 2013-2014 would be people who have spent most to all of their lives after peak sugar consumption occurred.

Maybe obesity rates aren't falling because sugar consumption, even in a modest decline, is still way too loving high?

You sound like someone who never got over their mom telling them they can't have a second Mountain Dew.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 02:01

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

fishmech posted:

This makes no sense. If sugar was what responsible for it, then a 15% reduction in its consumption should at the least reduce obesity to some degree. Instead, sugar consumption when sugar consumption went down 15% obesity rates went UP 23%. And again, even if there was a mechanism ensuring that once you ate a bunch of sugar you would forever for the rest of your life be fat, at least the rate of obesity in children should go down since younger kids would simply not eat as much sugar as time goes on, living in times with reduced sugar consumption. Yet child and adult obesity increased by that same rate.

Dose-response, motherfucker.

Well I guess you've proven there's no link between lovely sugar filled diets and any other, so I guess I'll just eat candy bars and drink sodas from now own and I sure my body will be fine. A calorie's a calorie, right?

Thanks fishmech, master of nutrition.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 02:13

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

boner confessor posted:

dont argue about fast food with fishmech. or anything really but he'll die on a hill made of whoppers

Well in his case that's probably going to end up being far more literal than usual, sadly.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 02:20

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

fishmech posted:

You continue shrieking about sugar as the culprit when it's blatantly obvious that its consumption has been going down for nearly as long as this whole drat site has existed. What makes you incapable of understanding that it's utterly unscientific to continue to believe it has some special role? People are consuming less sugar than they have for nearly 20 years at this point in the US yet obesity continues to go up, so when are you going to admit that it's because everyone's eating a bunch of all things?

Also you can live just fine on the soda and candy bars available these days but that's a whole different story. You've got an orthorexic fixation and should probably see a therapist about your hosed up relationship with food and religous need to blame sugar for everything wrong in your life.

This isn't true at all, but ok dude. It's objectively true that quite large decreases in sugar consumption hasn't resulted in a decrease in American obesity, all the data's right out there. In fact, obesity continued to rise despite the change. This indicates (to no one's surprise who understands nutrition) that restriction of just one component of food would be utterly ridiculous to manage individual or population weight.

Yes, to levels that are still higher than in the 1950s, let alone any other time in the 19th or 20th centuries. The problem is that your "large decrease" is still way more than humans consumed for most of human history.

You are clearly an insane person and I hope you do not nor ever have any control over a dependent's nutrition.

It's also pretty funny that I'm apparently the one with the problem who needs to see a therapist when all of your posts have been over the top hyper aggressive in the defense of junk food.

And uh, as someone with Type 1 Diabetes, the bit about having a religious need to blame sugar for everything wrong in my life is pretty funny.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 17, 2018

# ¿ Apr 17, 2018 02:35

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Phi230 posted:

Quiznos had dope subs, RIP.

Subway is cheap, which is good

Jimmy Johns is good if you wanna slim down from getting salmonella

Jersey Mikes good

Firehouse good,

but the Publix Sub reigns supreme

Jimmy Johns is great if you want to support a disgusting piece of human garbage. Salmonella seems like a fair punishment for choosing to give them your business.

# ¿ May 5, 2018 17:52

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

boner confessor posted:

have you seen the world of midwestern food, where "dish" is a category and not a container

I couldn't imagine living in a place so far from the ocean that the only concept of seafood people have is Red Lobster and frozen fish sticks.

# ¿ May 8, 2018 18:46

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Missouri has a specific law passed to allow restaurants, markets, and other places that sell fish commercially to call "crab stick" - AKA imitation crab meat that is made from processing several kinds of cooked fish, seaweed, and glycerin filler together and contains 0% crab meat - "Real Crab" and be exempt from truth in advertising laws, civil damages related to this deception (except for permanent injury), and supply chain rules.

The logic is that it would damage the tourism industry in Missouri if people were aware that they couldn't get fresh crab meat in Missouri.

# ¿ May 8, 2018 19:06

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

TyroneGoldstein posted:

Google maps has that place tagged as a Gastro Pub!!!!!!!!!

My experience with most gastro pubs has been that they are places trying really hard to be hip where you get slightly fancier bar food and pay like 3x the normal price for it. I've come to hate pretty much any place that describes itself as such because it usually just means I'm going to be hit with a hipster surcharge.

# ¿ May 9, 2018 15:32

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

skooma512 posted:

Fries in a little metal cup and aioli, that�ll be

And tapas, gently caress tapas.

Yeah, the ol' trick of using lesser known foreign words to describe the same old poo poo and adding another 5-10 bucks onto the menu price. Wanna be foodie poo poo heads ruining the local dining market is making George angry!

# ¿ May 9, 2018 17:27

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Climate refugees will be left to die by the thousands and even the millions when regions start becoming increasingly uninhabitable. "Woke" first worlders will respond with the rage react when they see the stories on Facebook and not much else. These things will happen without any mention of Malthus.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2018 15:03

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I would have loved something like twitch when I was a kid because my family moved around a lot and as a result I had a hard time making friends and spent a lot of time putting my face in books and playing video games. Being able to interact with other like-minded people virtually would have been huge.

Then again, given the toxic nature of many gaming communities it's possible it would have turned me into a full blown chud at some point.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 22:45

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Maybe one of you could post sources on direct sales restrictions because you can't both be right.

Thread moved faster than I realized I meant Owlofcreamcheese or fishmech

Like if there are bans on direct sales in 12 states that should be a pretty easy thing to c/d

# ¿ Aug 11, 2018 19:04

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Crow Jane posted:

I feel like every Kohls I've ever been to has looked like a tornado rolled through it.

Additionally the tornado is children with sticky hands. I like the Kohl's near me but I pretty much always go right when they open to avoid the way it looks once one or two people have systematically gone through and torn it to pieces.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2018 03:09

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Cars have gone up in reliability almost every year for decades and also every year for decades every survey has people estimating cars are going down in reliability. People like the idea things are getting worse even if stuff legitimately measurably isn't.

Try explaining that to someone that feels very strongly that their anecdotes are as relevant as data. I would say old people continue to be the worst but I've seen plenty of people my age and younger trot out the "they keep making things worse and worse so you have to buy more" argument.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2018 19:28

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

PT6A posted:

Apart from battery life issues, I have owned exactly two pieces of technology that have had any sort of actual equipment failure during their useful lives. Maybe I'm just very lucky, but I get the feeling that most gadgets are already sufficiently reliable.

I feel like most goons probably take better care of their poo poo than the average person. I am essentially walking tech support for my extended family because everyone else drops poo poo, spills things on their stuff, gets viruses installed on their computers and phones, etc and it's always the manufacturer's fault, not because they can't take better care of their things.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2018 19:43

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm open to heterodox analysis, but "Real income has gone steadily upward for decades thanks to wage increases and lower cost of goods, in spite of education and health care costs" is a nuclear take.

That doesn't even seem to be taking housing into consideration, which is probably eating 50% or more of a lot of people's budgets right now. Granted there are areas where that's not the case, but then those areas also have lower incomes to go along with their lower cost of living so...

# ¿ Sep 24, 2018 21:27

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Sure, nearly half of US Citizens ~~may be living in what we consider poverty~~, but hey, at least living in poverty isn't as bad as living in poverty was in the 50s! Now that's what I call progress!

:thumbsup:

Whoops, got my statistics mixed up. Over 40% of Americans don't have even 1000 dollars in savings, which is what I was thinking of. Still, the number of Americans living in poverty or near poverty is over 30 percent, which does not seem good.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Sep 25, 2018

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 02:16

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:

To be honest, their parents have probably lied to them. They afforded a house on a single income - after their mother and father and 5 cousins chipped in significant sums. The parents say it was so easy to get their stable job, but almost certainly they went through many year of shaky employment beforehand they just ignore. And frankly the house and job they have, it is some garbage places in suburbs while the current generations say "it is not good to live out there and they do not sell house to me anyway". You are not going to rebuild parents house neighborhood all again in same place, and if you build it again farther out it is hard to get to job, yes?

And really this is point of having statistics, because if you ask each person with no sourcing if their parents lives were so good before they are born, you do not get reality. You get 30-50 years of myth and rose-glass on top of reality when you look that way, when the information recorded back then tells other wise.

Consider if you are adult today, your parents probably were adults or edge of teens during 70th right? How much will they tell you of how much things suck during 1973-1980 oil crises all over Western world, about the other economic crisis of it like high inflation and jobs not matching up your pay.

Unironically wish the oil crisis would have continued indefinitely until Americans decided that everyone having three cars and driving everywhere alone was just not going to be reality anymore.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 22:17

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

JustJeff88 posted:

I see your point, but having lived about half of my life in America/Canada (though mostly in one of its largest cities) and the other in various spots in Europe, America is so spread out and has such dodgy infrastructure everywhere but in large cities that I can barely imagine how they would improve the issue. Global fuel scarcity is going to crush most of the country.

It's a band aid that needs ripping off at some point because suburban sprawl isn't sustainable. If it had happened back then at least it might have made a measurable difference with regard to climate change.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 22:43

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The U.S. is in no danger of running out of farmland. We literally subsidize millions of acres of farmland that are unnecessary for "national security" and jobs reasons.

If that was true, then everyone in Europe would have starved to death before 1920.

You might not like suburban growth, but it is perfectly sustainable for the next several hundred years in the United States. You're just working backwards from your preferences.

Yeah I guess if you just ignore all the other reasons suburbs are unsustainable, then they're sustainable. Climate change will render suburbs obsolete long before lack of farmland ever would.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 23:57

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Cicero posted:

The bigger issue with suburban sprawl is that it's expensive as poo poo to maintain and eventually replace the infrastructure. Strong Towns talks a lot about this.

And when gas is 20 dollars a gallon they might as well be underwater. No one is going to want to spend the kinda of money to convert these subdivisions into walkable neighborhoods with much denser housing when they can just be abandoned.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2018 00:26

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

im depressed lol posted:

tbh if i see a line at fast food it's my last opportunity to bail and i take it. i can't be the only person who rationalizes the quality of food to the time spent acquiring said food.

that's why that business model does all it can to keep lines moving, like the past decades implementation of those two-at-time order speakers

fake edit: actually i lied, i'm smarter than those sheep. here's a post about it. i'm above the marketing genius multi-billion dollar corporations whose whole point of existence is to find ways to make me part with my money.

I hate those things for revealing how insanely petty people can be when they want their num nums and they want them now.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2018 16:52

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

TyroneGoldstein posted:

For someone like Lampert...just take solace in knowing this is probably going to gently caress with his head as much if not a bit more (in a certain way) than literally being kidnapped in Connecticut.

It's one thing for a bunch of goons to try to extort you for money, it's another thing to desperately try to bail on the sinking ship of your entire worldview and ideology. Oh and put like 10 significant digits of wealth into that ship in the process.

For someone like Lampert I will only take solace when he is dragged in front of a Tribunal Wasteland Court and sentenced to a heinous death.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 19:41

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Baronash posted:

Because the subject of the discussion I was replying to was antitrust action against Amazon, not "how do we solve all problems from all businesses."

It won't, but America isn't just comprised of 250k+ person cities and tiny bumblefuck towns. Towns of 8k, 16k, and 32k all exist and all can benefit from services designed to make their business community more productive. Now that doesn't mean propping up "Uncle John's General Store," it means providing resources and services (like modern internet speeds and inexpensive daycare) that would allow someone to buy Uncle John's storefront and start their HR consulting company (or whatever) in their mid-sized town instead of the city or county seat 45 minutes away.

As I said before, I put about 10 seconds of thought into "Main Street revival" before I threw it in the post. It certainly has flaws, it's not a magic bullet solution, and I'm not interested in defending an offhand suggestion anymore. The crux of what I was saying in the OP was that breaking up Amazon is probably a lovely solution, and that there are better ways to penalize their size that could do a lot of good. If you think that oughta be a tax, then great.

If that's how you save America maybe it's best to just let it die.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2018 15:29

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Baronash posted:

Or we can do multiple things simultaneously and let the subject of an antitrust case against Amazon be just a small part of fixing poo poo.

Like, how the statement "let's take Amazon's money and do some good with it" is controversial is beyond me.

I'm sorry, not in disagreement with doing something with Amazon, just what I bolded. Please give me the death of capitalism before I have to suffer the existence of more "consulting" firms.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2018 15:51

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 00:05

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I don't understand DQ's business logic. In like, the north they typically are an all icecream place and everything but mall locations closes in the winter, while in the south it seems to be a way more hamburger focused fast food place? Why would they not switch that? And have the hamburgers in the cold part of the country and stay open all year then have the icecream focused place in the hot parts of the country?

I live in the Northwest and I have never seen a DQ close outside of winter. Their tagline is "hot eats cool treats."

# ¿ Nov 12, 2018 16:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

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